LeRoy Battle (December 31, 1921 – March 28, 2015)[1] was a World War II pilot, teacher, and jazz musician.

[3] Both Walter and Margie Battle's families had moved to New York from the rural South as part of the Great Migration.

[2] Battle wrote in his autobiography that while his uncles played a major role in his childhood, he did not spend much time with his father.

[2] In order to take music lessons, he joined a Boy Scout troop run through the Bethany Baptist Church.

[2] Battle recalled that while the equipment was poor, the scoutmaster, Gary Talbert, was a "very kind and caring" man who became a father figure to him.

[2] In seventh grade, Battle got his own drum set from the Wurlitzer's Music Company, where he arranged to take lessons for 25 cents apiece.

[2] After his mother recommended him to an affluent family in Bensonhurst, Battle became a music instructor himself, for the "exorbitant fee" of seven dollars a lesson.

[2] Battle vividly recalled an incident where he and his friends were refused service by an ice cream parlor because of their race.

[2] "Even to this day when I think back on that night," Battle wrote decades later, "I can still hear the brittle sound of crashing glasses, all because they had been touched by black boys.

[2] As a senior in high school,[2] Battle played alongside Billie Holiday[4] at the Three Deuces Jazz Club.

[5] After graduating from Tuskegee, Battle took a six-week gunnery program at Tyndall Field, where he learned to shoot down attacking planes.

In 1945, the 477th Bombardment Group was transferred to the Freeman Army Air Force Base for advanced training, after which they were to be sent overseas.

[6] In his autobiography, he explained his reasoning:We were very cognizant of the fact that, theoretically, because this was during wartime, we could be brought up on charges of treason, or mutiny, and consequently executed.

The idea of people taking aggressive civil rights action was not yet established in the public mind, much less in the context of the military with its far greater restrictions on personal liberties.

[4] Battle attended the Juilliard School before transferring to Morgan State University,[4] where he earned a bachelor's degree in musical education.

[3] Battle attended the NAACP-sponsored protest rally along with three of Douglass High School's trumpet players.

On Cassidy's (1992) album The Other Side, recorded with Chuck Brown, Battle is credited with trombone on "Let the Good Times Roll", organ on "I'll Go Crazy", and trumpet on "Red Top".

A resident of Harwood, Battle died at the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland on March 28, 2015.